Recently I've been noticing and trying to trying to deconstruct the many layers of fear I have wrapped around vidding. ( cut for boring introspective stuff )
I can't remember ever thinking this was a problem--in each case I just felt very angry and wanted to show people that my output wasn't good enough in my eyes, which is what really counted, and that they were being patronising and I wouldn't stand for such bullshit.
I don’t need your pity, Lee! (c)
Thing is, I've had these in me since I was a tiny child. About anything I made ever. I can list dozens of instances when I was a kid when I tore up, smashed, threw away or otherwise destroyed things that I made. Usually the prompt to do so was someone praising it.
Do you know exactly where this is coming from? When you were little, have you ever had people praising your work only to tell you it’s shit a bit later or criticize it behind your back?
I can make sense of this behaviour when I think that I was considering the pieces as a reflection of myself, and destroying them was an attempt to say 'no! I'm not ok! I hate myself and it makes me so angry and you guys DON'T GET IT!' Which is all kinds of fucked up, yes, but definitely has the hallmarks of the insidious egocentricity and narcissism that infects depression sufferers. It also makes sense as an act of self-sabotage to keep me stuck in depression: don't produce anything good! don't accept praise! just live out a self-fulfilling prophecy as a failure! MUCH safer!
You identify yourself with creative work products, but they’re not you. On the one hand you want to share something coming from your heart, on the other hand you say what you do is not good enough beforehand as if to make sure that others won’t hurt you first. When they don’t, you turn it into self-flagellation because it means you’re not shit (and you’re not ready to accept that when you feel like shit - everyone seems to be the enemy patronizing you or mocking you). You can’t accept either of those forms of reaction: nor praise nor criticism. You rebel because in fact, it doesn’t matter what your work is like, what does matter is that you’re somewhere in between, not that form expressed through you.
I don't know where it comes from... I wish I did! I have tried tracing back in my head and I came to an early memory of doing it at age 3? So wherever it comes from, it came super-early. The best I can come up with is that being praised didn't feel 'safe' in my family--it felt, yeah, controlling and like a threat of violence to come. I guess I preempted the violence by enacting it myself first--against the things that got praised.
Ok, now what you need to do is see how self-destructive and pointless it is...
When my sister came visiting last February I told her about my vidding issues a bit and she said that vidding for me is similar to painting/drawing for her - it allows to validate your own feelings, especially when others reject them. It's an emotional prop in a way. She said I have to be very honest about what makes me want to vid in the first place. Is it this desire to get praised? Is it the urge to make *that world on screen* more real because you want to escape this one/and thus to escape yourself? And I didn't answer her but I answered myself without saying anything out loud. And I know both reasons are there, and some others too, each to a different extent. I can't get rid of my ego, I can stop vidding altogether and pretend I don't have one, but hadn't I tried that? I was avoiding vidding till my anger subsided a bit or till someone else's pain got so withering I couldn't bear it and my anger became insignificant in comparison, but then there are still a million of emotions eating at me from the inside. I better let them out, I think. I know I'm far from perfection when it comes to motivation. The best I can do is try to train my ego not to interfere too much, like a stubborn puppy.
Seriously? As long as destroying your own work helps you to move forward (and not just creatively, but... humanly), I'm all for it. But it doesn't sound like that's the case.
I don’t need your pity, Lee! (c)
Thing is, I've had these in me since I was a tiny child. About anything I made ever. I can list dozens of instances when I was a kid when I tore up, smashed, threw away or otherwise destroyed things that I made. Usually the prompt to do so was someone praising it.
Do you know exactly where this is coming from? When you were little, have you ever had people praising your work only to tell you it’s shit a bit later or criticize it behind your back?
I can make sense of this behaviour when I think that I was considering the pieces as a reflection of myself, and destroying them was an attempt to say 'no! I'm not ok! I hate myself and it makes me so angry and you guys DON'T GET IT!' Which is all kinds of fucked up, yes, but definitely has the hallmarks of the insidious egocentricity and narcissism that infects depression sufferers. It also makes sense as an act of self-sabotage to keep me stuck in depression: don't produce anything good! don't accept praise! just live out a self-fulfilling prophecy as a failure! MUCH safer!
You identify yourself with creative work products, but they’re not you. On the one hand you want to share something coming from your heart, on the other hand you say what you do is not good enough beforehand as if to make sure that others won’t hurt you first. When they don’t, you turn it into self-flagellation because it means you’re not shit (and you’re not ready to accept that when you feel like shit - everyone seems to be the enemy patronizing you or mocking you). You can’t accept either of those forms of reaction: nor praise nor criticism. You rebel because in fact, it doesn’t matter what your work is like, what does matter is that you’re somewhere in between, not that form expressed through you.
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Heh.
I don't know where it comes from... I wish I did! I have tried tracing back in my head and I came to an early memory of doing it at age 3? So wherever it comes from, it came super-early. The best I can come up with is that being praised didn't feel 'safe' in my family--it felt, yeah, controlling and like a threat of violence to come. I guess I preempted the violence by enacting it myself first--against the things that got praised.
Reply
When my sister came visiting last February I told her about my vidding issues a bit and she said that vidding for me is similar to painting/drawing for her - it allows to validate your own feelings, especially when others reject them. It's an emotional prop in a way. She said I have to be very honest about what makes me want to vid in the first place. Is it this desire to get praised? Is it the urge to make *that world on screen* more real because you want to escape this one/and thus to escape yourself? And I didn't answer her but I answered myself without saying anything out loud. And I know both reasons are there, and some others too, each to a different extent. I can't get rid of my ego, I can stop vidding altogether and pretend I don't have one, but hadn't I tried that? I was avoiding vidding till my anger subsided a bit or till someone else's pain got so withering I couldn't bear it and my anger became insignificant in comparison, but then there are still a million of emotions eating at me from the inside. I better let them out, I think. I know I'm far from perfection when it comes to motivation. The best I can do is try to train my ego not to interfere too much, like a stubborn puppy.
Seriously? As long as destroying your own work helps you to move forward (and not just creatively, but... humanly), I'm all for it. But it doesn't sound like that's the case.
Reply
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